Villanova Sprints To Help Teammates! How To Create A Culture Of Shared Purpose

SAN ANTONIO, TX - APRIL 02: Head coach Jay Wright of the Villanova Wildcats raises the trophy with his team after defeating the Michigan Wolverines during the 2018 NCAA Men's Final Four National Championship game at the Alamodome on April 2, 2018 in San Antonio, Texas. Villanova defeated Michigan 79-62. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

Congrats to the Villanova Wildcats on their second NCAA Championship in three years! What an amazing achievement.

SAN ANTONIO, TX - MARCH 31: Jalen Brunson #1 of the Villanova Wildcats falls out of bounds after being fouled by a Kansas Jayhawks player. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

But, as impressive as their win over Michigan was in the title game, it was while watching the Wildcats play the Kansas Jayhawks in the semi-finals on Saturday night that I saw something truly extraordinary. With seven minutes to go, the Wildcats were up 17 points and Villanova guard Jalen Brunson streaked up the court when he was fouled by a Kansas player. The foul was nothing out of the ordinary, but Brunson lost his balance and tumbled head first to the sideline and ended up face down out of bounds.

The video below is a recap of Villanova's victory against Kansas. Skip to the 1:27 mark to see what happened!

As I watched that replay I was struck by the thought that we should all want to play on a team like that.

Does your team run to help if a member fails or falls down? Will the rest of the team come to their aid? True teams are built when people are committed to each other.

To understand how to create genuinely caring teams, it helps to take a closer look at Villanova and Coach Jay Wright. By any standard, Villanova is an elite team. Over the last decade they have consistently been a top 5 team, year after year, and more recently have been a perennial favorite or contender for the National Championship.

SAN ANTONIO, TX - APRIL 02: The Villanova Wildcats huddle for a timeout against the Michigan Wolverines in the first half during the 2018 NCAA Men's Final Four National Championship game at the Alamodome on April 2, 2018 in San Antonio, Texas. (Photo by Chris Covatta/Getty Images)

Take the Villanova timeout huddle. Lots of teams bring chairs to the floor for the players to sit down, while the bench gets up and stands around the coach. But Coach Wright injects a sense of purpose and belonging, even into a huddle. While the five on the floor are sitting down, the bench stands around them, like a wall, arms draped over each other’s shoulders. They aren’t just talking about being a team, they are living it out, even in the small things like standing in a huddle. Coach told me, “That’s what we teach them, that that’s the way it’s going to be if you play here.”

If you want to create truly great teams, then give your teammates a shared purpose. People want to be part of something. They want a clear purpose, to know they are in it for more than themselves, and to know their teammates are looking out for their best interests – a place where we drape our arms around each other and race from four corners to pick each other up.

This is doubly important if you have Millennials on your team. Millennials love purpose. According to a Deloitte study on Millennials in the workplace, 6 out of 10 cited “a sense of purpose” as part of the reason they chose their current employer. 40% of Millennials plan to stay at their current jobs for longer than 5 years because of the company’s sense of purpose. Your company’s shared purpose and the meaning you’re creating affects your ability to attract and even retain next-generation talent.

In Daniel Pink’s 2009 book Drive, he lays out study after study that shows the old carrot and stick model of motivation driven by punishment (You’re Fired) and reward (Pay Raises) doesn’t work with the new generation. He says they desire three things: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. It’s the purpose that ties everything else together.

Coach Wright has built this sense of purpose and community into the culture of Villanova and seen incredible results. What about your company? How are you building a culture where teammates stand shoulder to shoulder and rush to pick each other up when they fall? Is there someone you can pick up TODAY?

When you create that sense of shared purpose, you will be, like Villanova, in rare air.

I am a keynote speaker, corporate business leadership coach, 11-time New York Times Best-selling author and longtime associate editor for Sports Illustrated. As a speaker, I have worked with audiences as diverse as Fortune 500 companies, associations and leadership forums o...